How to Prepare Your Garden for Winter in Two Days

As the growing season winds down, garden centers slash their prices. Shop around for bargains on plants, tools, and pots you can put to good use next year.

Before you put your feet up and settle in for the garden off-season, dedicate a few days to getting your landscape tucked in tight. Follow these simple steps to tidy up and prep your yard for a long winter nap in just one weekend.

Day One (Morning): Trim the Plants & Tidy the Garden

Divide your overgrown perennials and cut back the dead foliage on others. Remove any spent annuals and vegetables from the garden—roots and all—and add any disease-free debris to your compost pile. As you yank out plants and weeds, be mindful of pests and diseases. Double-bag and discard diseased plants or foliage.

But not everything in your landscape needs to go. “Leave healthy perennials, such as purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, sunflowers and grasses—they provide habitat for beneficial insects, food for birds and interest for the winter landscape,” Melinda says. (If you’re not sure which fall perennials will work best in your garden, check out Top 10 Fall Flowers for a Perennial Garden.)

Day One (Afternoon): Protect Your Garden & Plan for Winter

Some plants and containers struggle in severe winter temps. Bring pots and nonhardy plants indoors or at least out of the elements. If you’re worried about the survival of plants or pots that must stay outdoors, wrap them in blankets or burlap. As an added measure, surround them with woodchips or bags of potting mix to keep the roots snug and safe from the elements.

Cover the plant’s roots, too.“To avoid frost heaving—when the freezing and thawing of the soil shifts and pushes shallow-rooted perennials and bulbs out of the ground—apply evergreen boughs or weed-free straw around your perennial and bulb plantings after the ground freezes,” Melinda says. “This keeps the soil consistently cold even during a winter thaw.”

It’s also a good idea to nourish perennials and annuals by incorporating compost and shredded leaves. Newly planted trees and shrubs are especially vulnerable in the winter and need a little extra attention.

“Protect your garden from hungry animals by placing a cylinder of hardware cloth around (not touching) the trunk of young trees and shrubs,” Melinda says. “Sink it several inches into the soil to deter voles, and make sure it is at least 4-feet tall in order to keep rabbits away.”

Day Two: Plant for Spring & Maintain Your Landscape

Once your landscape is all cleaned up, get a jump-start on next year’s garden and plant what you can now. Fall is a great time to plant trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs. (Still need convincing? Why You Should Plant Spring Bulbs Now!) Simply make sure you get them in the ground before the soil gets too cold so roots have time to become established.

Also use this time to clean and sharpen garden tools, disinfect pots and make necessary repairs around the landscape. It will make your spring prep a breeze! With a yard that’s been perfectly prepped for the winter season, you can rest easy and cozy up for the cold months, dreaming about next year’s garden.

Bonus! 3 Extra Things You Can Do to Prep Your Garden for Winter

• Divide and transplant some perennials. Hostas, peonies and early bloomers—such as coral bells, phlox, poppies and daisies— benefit from being thinned out.

• If you’re an avid veggie gardener or you think your soil will benefit from a dose of organic matter, sow a cover crop to protect and enrich the soil.

• Drain your garden hose and bring it in for winter. Wipe it with a rag to remove any mud and moisture, then store it flat in a dry, dark place.

Please share updated information that it’s no longer recommended to clean up your garden in the fall. Much better to leave it “messy” so the overwintering bees and other beneficial critters have a safe place to hunker down.

Often time the more we think we’re helping clean-up a naturally “cluttered” setting, the more we are actually disrupting invisible or minute processes which contribute to the overall health of our soil in the long run, in the name of appearance and “tidiness”.

Take care of your tools, plants will generally take care of themselves with minimal intervention. Dead leave and the like = next year’s topsoil. I do agree that obviously diseased or rotted things can be removed, but do realize that nature as the answer to that as well: exposure to the sun’s UV rays, the elements, and microbes will generally render these matters moot.

I believe they mean to make a “cylinder” of hardware cloth (wire the 2 ends together) around the plant trunk) and dig a circled trench so that the wire extends below ground level a bit. To deter burrowing animals.

I have a question about disinfecting pots— had always heard that putting them in my OVEN at a high temperature would do it; is that still a good method? What Temp. and for how long (assuming the answer is yes?

Hi Karen,
I certainly wouldn’t go to those lengths. I wouldn’t want my outdoor pots in my kitchen oven where I bake food. I just rinse my pots out with the garden hose. If you need to disinfect ( diseased plant in pot) some dilute javex or even strong vinegar would be enough. Rinse well and let dry in the sun. Good luck!